Novice Students' Learning of ObjectOriented Programming

1
Novice Students' Learning of Object-Oriented
Programming

• Anna Eckerdal
• Dept. of Information Technology
• Uppsala University Sweden

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Learning to program

• is a complex activity!

3
Where lies the problem? Or - where is the
solution?
- The teacher subject knowledge, good notes,
engagement, approach to
teaching
- The student preknowledge, mental model of
the computer, personal, approach
to learning, motives,
conceptual
understanding, personal life
- Language Development environment Java,
ML, Pascal emacs, BlueJ, eclips
- Environment working load, assessments, pair-
programming, textbook,
automatic computerized
tutorials
- etc.
4
My research interestTo give a broad picture of
students' experience of their learning

• What do students learn?
• How do they go about to learn?

5
Research questions

• What are students' understandings of what
  learning to program means?
• What are students' understandings of concepts in
  object-oriented programming?
  
• How do students use resources when learning
  computer programming and what are their
  experiences of the support they provide?
• What motives to learn computer programming can be
  found among the students?
  
  
  
  Qualitative research approach

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Outline

• The study
• Phenomenography
• Research question 1 (and 2)
  Datacollection, analysis and results
• Content analysis
• Research question 4 (and 3)
  Analysis and results
• Implications for education
• Future work

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The study

• 14 first year undergraduate students in the study
  program Aquatic and Environmental Engineering.
• Participants chosen from a group with the aim to
  capture variation within the whole group
  concerning background knowledge, age, gender etc.
• First programming course, using Java. Giving 4
  Swedish credit points.
• One hour individual semi-open interview,
  taperecorded, transcribed verbatim

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Phenomenography(Marton Booth, 1997)

• Qualitative empirical research approach
• Developed from numerous empirical studies in many
  subject areas
• Developed and used in education
• Takes the learners' perspective
• Aims at analysing and describing the variation in
  students' understanding of phenomena

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Phenomenography (cont.)

• Datacollection, usually semi-open interviews
• Analysis on a collective level
• The researcher formulates the essence of the
  understandings found with his/her own words as a
  limited number of qualitatively different
  categories of description
• These categories show educationally critical
  aspects of the understanding of a phenomenon

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Data collection, the interviews

• Questions on understanding of what learning to
  program means
• What do you think learning means in this course?
• What do you experience the course to be about?
• What has been most important to you in this
  course?
• What do you think was the aim for you when
  learning to program?
• What has been difficult in the course?

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The phenomenographic analysis

• Look for patterns in the data of different
  understandings of a phenomenon. Compare and group
  students' excerpts.
• Qualitatively different categories of description
  in an outcome space
• The analysis is on a group level, not aiming at
  presenting individual students' understandings,
  but the different understandings found in the
  group

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Students' understanding of what learning to
program means categories of description

• 1. To understand some programming language, and
  to use
• it for writing program texts.
• 2. As above, and in addition learning a way of
  thinking, which is experienced to be difficult to
  capture, and which is understood to be aligned
  with the programming language.
• 3. As above, and in addition to gain
  understanding of
• computer programs as they appear in everyday
  life.
• 4. As above, with the difference learning a way
  of thinking
• which enables problem solving, and which is
  experienced
• as a method of thinking.
• 5. As above, and in addition learning a skill
  that can be
• used outside the programing course.

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Excerpts from the interviews"What does it mean
to learn in this course?"
Student N I think it is all about learning,
partly the commands, fundamental commands I use,
I have to remember them
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Students' understanding of what learning to
program means categories of description

• 1. to understand some programming language, and
  to use
• it for writing program texts.
• 2. As above, and in addition learning a way of
  thinking, which is experienced to be difficult to
  capture, and which is understood to be aligned
  with the programming language.
• 3. As above, and in addition to gain
  understanding of
• computer programs as they appear in everyday
  life.
• 4. As above, with the difference learning a way
  of thinking
• which enables problem solving, and which is
  experienced
• as a method of thinking.
• 5. As above, and in addition learning a skill
  that can be
• used outside the programing course.

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Excerpts from the interviews"What does it mean
to learn in this course?"
Student D And I actually think that most of it
the course has been difficult, but this very
thought behind, it feels as some people just
understand programming, it's something they...
but I also think that some people who have been
programming before have probably learned to think
like that.
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Students' under-standing of what learning to
program means categories of description

• 1. to understand some programming language, and
  to use
• it for writing program texts.
• 2. As above, and in addition learning a way of
  thinking, which is experienced to be difficult to
  capture, and which is understood to be aligned
  with the programming language.
• 3. As above, and in addition to gain
  understanding of
• computer programs as they appear in everyday
  life.
• 4. As above, with the difference learning a way
  of thinking
• which enables problem solving, and which is
  experienced
• as a method of thinking.
• 5. As above, and in addition learning a skill
  that can be
• used outside the programing course.

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Excerpts from the interviews"What does it mean
to learn in this course?"

• Student D You just think of things like when you
  withdraw money from a cash point, kind of, then
  you start to think, okey, it's these steps,
  figures and the sum and kind of ... No but
  those things that one starts to think a little
  about how certain things are built

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Students' under-standing of what learning to
program means categories of description

• 1. to understand some programming language, and
  to use
• it for writing program texts.
• 2. As above, and in addition learning a way of
  thinking, which is experienced to be difficult to
  capture, and which is understood to be aligned
  with the programming language.
• 3. As above, and in addition to gain
  understanding of
• computer programs as they appear in everyday
  life.
• 4. As above, with the difference learning a way
  of thinking
• which enables problem solving, and which is
  experienced
• as a method of thinking.
• 5. As above, and in addition learning a skill
  that can be
• used outside the programing course.

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Excerpts from the interviews"What does it mean
to learn in this course?"

• Student G To get to try, like, you learn to
  think in a special way, you learn problem
  solving. ... It's problem solving.

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Students' under-standing of what learning to
program means categories of description

• 1. to understand some programming language, and
  to use
• it for writing program texts.
• 2. As above, and in addition learning a way of
  thinking, which is experienced to be difficult to
  capture, and which is understood to be aligned
  with the programming language.
• 3. As above, and in addition to gain
  understanding of
• computer programs as they appear in everyday
  life.
• 4. As above, with the difference learning a way
  of thinking
• which enables problem solving, and which is
  experienced
• as a method of thinking.
• 5. As above, and in addition learning a skill
  that can be
• used outside the programing course.

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Excerpts from the interviews"What does it mean
to learn in this course?"

• Student E Yes but it's that the more you know
  about computers the less dependent on others
  you'll be, sort of.
• I I see.
• E I don't know, if you work somewhere later
  and have some insight into things, then I think
  it'll open a window so that you know what it's
  about at least even if you don't, I mean, it's
  the pros that will deal with the real things.

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Content analysis

• Systematic categorisation of data according to a
  research question
• Categories revised in feedback loops
• Not necessarily qualitatively different categories

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Students' motives to learn, interview questions

• What was your aim/purpose when using this
  resource?
• Why did you use this resource?
• What has been most important in the course?
  
  
  Plus other questions like what
  it means to learn in the present course.

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Students' motives for learning to program.
Excerpts from the interviews

• Case students
• Student B I love to program because it's fun to
  program
• B I just think it has been interesting to learn.
  I have sort of learned 10 times as much as I knew
  before. I have really really enjoyed it, so I
  have spent a lot of time at the computer.

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Students' motives for learning to program.
Excerpts from the interviews

• Student A I'm interested in concepts and to get
  a theoretical overview
• A I think it is also to get the whole picture,
  to understand how a programming language is
  constructed, how the language is structured and
  how it is related with for instance C and that
  is also a bit more overarching. Detailed
  knowledge is also useful and to have tried, sort
  of to have had a taste, it is more the feeling
  and a bigger understanding

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Students' motives for learning to program.
Excerpts from the interviews

• Student K I want to learn to program, it will
  improve my problem solving ability
• K What is good with courses like this is that
  one gets to practice problem solving. That is
  actually really good. One has a problem that one
  solves in different ways and thus one perhaps
  find the best way . That is one of the core
  things I think. Then that one should write in a
  programming language, this could perhaps be done
  in anyone. But the dealing with problems, the
  problem solving, that is something I think is
  important.

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Students' motives for learning to program.
Excerpts from the interviews

• Student H I'm going to the class because I want
  to join the fellowship in the group
• H .. When you are part of a class, then one
  wants to go to school, because that's... it is
  not just for the sake of Java, but also sort of
  the whole ting. I find it pretty fun to be at
  school and then... then it sort of leads to you
  going there and then when you been there a few
  times then you sort of don't want to miss the
  rest.

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Students' motives for learning to program.
Excerpts from the interviews

• Student E I'm not interested in programming,
  but I want to learn because I know I will benefit
  from it
• E I sort of think that it is a good thing that
  all learn to program. ... I'm sort of not the
  programming type of person. I can find it fun
  only when one sees the logic and constructive in
  it, but.. I get frustrated when it isn't so.
  ... Yes but it's that the more you know about
  computers the less dependent on others you'll be,
  sort of. ... I don't know, if you work
  somewhere later and have some insight into
  things, then I think it'll open a window so that
  you know what it's about at least

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Discussion

• 1.Students' understan- 2.Students'
  understanding ding what it means
  of object and class to learn
  to program
  

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Discussion (cont.)

• D ... I guess, it's just a rather different
  way of thinking. ... I've taken many math
  courses but math is kind of logical and you
  understand it but this is... no I don't know
  (laughter). No but I kind of think it's easier to
  study math. Then you often have something
  creative to base it on, or you don't, but you
  learn more methods and kind of, there is some
  theory behind. Here you feel as if you only learn
  a lot of examples. You know, we've gotten so many
  examples of everything, in some way it feels as
  if you don't understand the base from the
  beginning ...
• (my italics)

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Discussion (cont.)

• C I don't know... I guess it's actually to
  solve a certain type of problem, it's rather like
  the math courses. Then learning different methods
  to solve them in different ways. Much like that,
  if you look back at the course it's not much
  actually but very, very fundamental.
• (my italics)

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Discussion (cont.)

• 1.Students' understan- 2.Students'
  under- ding what it means
  standing of object to learn to program
  and class
  
• Mathematic education research Introduced
  learning of concepts in terms of the
  'process-object duality',
  (Sfard, 1991 Hazzan, 2003)

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Discussion (cont.)

• D it's easier to study math ... you learn
  more methods
• D the course, it's difficult too for a novice
  to get a good grip on how to study"
• When learning object-oriented programming
• 1. Object conception
  2. Process conception
  3.
  Component conception
• Students' seem to need to reach the
  understanding of what learning to program means
  expressed in cat. 4 in the first outcome space
  Programming thinking as problem solving.
  

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Novice Students' Learning of Object-Oriented
ProgrammingDiscussion and results
4. Learning outcome

of the concepts

object and class

1.Students' understan- 3.
Students' motives to ding of what
it means learn to program
to learn to program
2. Students' use of

resources
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Implications for education

• Students need to discern methods to program
• Educational critical aspects of object and class
  identified for use in the teaching
• Important for students to follow a whole
  programming task problem analysis, design,
  implementation, testing

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Implications for education

• Groups of resources used mainly in
  superficial/search-for-meaning ways
• Possible for teachers to connect to different
  motives that promote learning

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Future work

• Reseach on component-process-object-conception in
  learning OO-concepts
• Identify Threshold Concepts within the first
  programming course
• Identidy educational critical aspects of these
  concepts
• Identify crusial aspects of becoming a member of
  the Computer Science community/culture